Chapter 98
Chapter 98
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Avery’s POV
The week of our wedding the cherry trees were in bloom. I watched their petals drifting to the ground from the sanctuary of my private garden. I cupped the falling flowers in my hands and smelled their sweet scent.
My mother had finally sent me a letter telling me she was safe with Sofia. She had received none of my letters and only knew the lies Zara had told her. She warned me to leave Gideon if he was mistreating me.
So much had happened that I didn’t even know where to begin writing a response.
I wasn’t sure myself where my feelings lay.
Knowing more now about Gideon’s past, it was hard not to feel for him. For that young wolf who had been raised to become a leader… and a killer.
Some of the rumors that had always swirled around the Nightwolf Alpha began to make more sense. He both was, and wasn’t, the monster others believed. The horrific massacre he had been a part of as a young adult was a
result of his demonblood.
The Gideon I knew, the strong leader, would never do such a thing, but if exposed to the right elements, he was a merciless demon wolf that would slaughter his loved ones in an instant.
And I was supposed to marry him.
That alone was enough to make anyone pause. On top of that, he allegedly had a true mate out there somewhere who could show up at any time. I was still waiting on the results of the love spell I had done to draw his mate to him, but no one else had materialized yet.
Perhaps my spell wouldn’t work, or perhaps she was already dead.
Now my wedding was only days away, and I was the one who was being drawn in. The tension between Gideo and I when we were together was palpable. There had been too many shared moments so far to ignore it.
The time he had thrown me on the couch thinking I was meeting with Ryan secretly, there had been something in his eyes that had made me feel like he wanted to do so much more to me. Then, I had spent the night in the forest in his lap and kissed him while he slept.
He had told me the most painful secret of his past, and I had held him while the ghosts of those he killed echoed around us. He had thrown his brother out of the pack because of me, and his family hated him for it.
I could already tell, to love someone like Gideon was to repeatedly experience both pleasure and pain. I was drawn to him like a moth to a flame.
I had promised I wouldn’t leave until after the wedding, in exchange for keeping my mother safe. If I brought her here, he would honor that promise, but could I honor mine?
If we married, I would be bound here forever. Not because of a mating bond, but because of my duties as Luna. I would run this pack, bear Gideon children, but would he love me?
It seemed like a lonely existence otherwise.
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Chapter 98
+25 Bonus
Now my pride had me on the brink of going to him and demanding that he renounce his mate and take me instead. That would be the condition of our marriage, that he be mated to me and me alone.
Did I dare ask for that?
I wandered through my garden, thinking. The basin of water that reflected the full moon last week, now served as a birdbath in the orchard. I trailed my fingers through the water and watched the clouds shimmer beneath my touch.
If Gideon was willing to mate with me, was he who I wanted?
My body still remembered the rogue in the woods who had taken me on the Full Mating moon. I bit my lip as I remembered the way that stranger had played my body so expertly. There had been lightning between us, and he had felt it too – giving me the mark that was hidden on my neck that claimed me as his. 1
But I had left that man, not knowing who he was, and now I was on another path. There was no way of locating him, and I wasn’t ready to live a rogue’s existence, scraping by in the wilds without the safety and security of a pack.
I would rather leave for the southern territories and lose myself in one of the human cities before taking to the wilderness. If my mother was safe with Sofia, the enchantress who had lent me books on harnessing my magic, then there was nothing that would hold me here any longer.
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